User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Webliography (Canadian Justice)

Timeline of events related to Omar Khadr is a list of annotated significant dates related to the controversial case of a Canadian citizen who was detained in U.S. prisons at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay and charged with war crimes. Journalists, such as Peter Kent and Michelle Rempel, have described him as a "terrorist murderer" who is guilty of "war crimes" during the "2002 firefight in Afghanistan that ended with his capture" and resulted in the death of U.S. Delta Force Sgt Christopher Speer and injury of "retired special forces soldier Layne Morris." Speer's widow and Morris have successfully sued Khadr for $134-million (U.S.) in a Ohio civil lawsuit. who was injured..."won a $134-million (U.S.) default civil judgment against [Omar Khadr] in a U.S. federal court in Utah for his alleged actions in the 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that ended with his capture." ""Today Canadians are paying a hefty price because successive Liberal and Conservative governments sacrificed principle to political expedience, traded away due process, and turned on their own child citizen, a trapped and helpless teenager.""
 * July 13, 2017 As reported in July 13, 2017 article in The Toronto Sun, the Supreme Court of Canada rulings in 2008 and 2010 made "monetary damages almost inevitable". Their 2008 ruling which was unanimous, stated that "by making the product of its [post-torture] interviews of Mr. Khadr available to U.S. authorities, Canada participated in a process that was contrary to Canada’s international human rights obligations." Again in 2010 the Supreme Court wrote "the interrogation of a youth detained without access to counsel, to elicit statements about serious criminal charges while knowing that the youth had been subjected to sleep deprivation and while knowing the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards." "According to a poll by Angus Reid, 91 per cent of Conservatives, 61 per cent of Liberals, and 64 per cent of NDP voters are against the settlement; 43 per cent of Canadians wouldn’t even have apologized for Canada’s participation in his ordeal."
 * July 2017

- Sandy Garossino National Observer July 2017


 * July 13, 2017 Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba "turned down a request for a freeze order on Omar Khadr's $10.5-million settlement." "David Winer, lawyer for Speer and Morris, [had] urged the court to freeze Khadr's millions until a decision [had been] made." "Lawyer Nathan Whitling said Khadr has plans for his money that include his lawyers and his family and it’s his money to do with as he pleases. "He would prefer to keep his financial affairs private," Whitling said." In 2004 Nate Whitling, Khadr’s lawyer, drafted Khadr's "initial claim" against the Canadian federal government in the civil case. Materials from Nate Whitling's initial claim against the Canadian federal government were accepted by Justice Thomas McEwan in the July 13, 2017 hearing.

""We don't, thank goodness, in Canada have one law for Omar Khadr and one law for all other Canadians. The law, including the law for obtaining a pre-judgment freezing order, applies equally to everyone...The test for obtaining such a drastic legal remedy is and should be rigorous...There is no actual evidence before the court of any real risk that the respondent is about to remove assets from the jurisdiction to avoid the possibility of a judgment or is otherwise dissipating his assets to frustrate the claims of actual or potential creditors.""

- Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba, July 13, 2017


 * July 7, 2017 Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale explained that the apology and settlement were because of "Canada’s role in Khadr’s mistreatment following his capture as a badly wounded 15-year-old in Afghanistan in July 2002...Those judgments relate to Canadian intelligence officers travelling to Guantanamo Bay to interrogate Khadr, whom the Americans had subjected to weeks of sleep deprivation to soften him up, then sharing the information with U.S. agents and prosecutors who would later charge him with war crimes. Video released by court order showed a desolate teen weeping for his mother after realizing the Canadians were not there to help him."

""The settlement that was announced today has to do with the wrongdoing of Canadian officials with respect to a Canadian citizen,” Goodale said. “You simply need to read two very comprehensive judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada.""

- Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale. July 7, 2017


 * June 22, 2017 On June 22, 2017 "lawyers for Khadr and Canada’s Department of Justice concluded their court mediation and reached a deal: the government would apologize and compensation would be $10.5 million. But the government did not immediately issue the funds, nor announce the deal. The evening of July 3, media reported the deal. Sources say the settlement money was given to Khadr and his lawyers July 5."
 * June 8, 2017 On June 8, 2017 lawyers for Tabitha Speer and Layne Morris filed an 11-page application with Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice requesting an "emergency injunction to stop the Canadian government from giving Khadr and his lawyers the reported $10.5-million settlement."
 * February 10, 2015 The White Pine Pictures documentary, Guantanamo's Child: Omar Khadr directed by Patrick Reed and Michelle Shephard, which was shown at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), was listed in December 2015 on the TIFF annual list of the ten best Canadian films of 2015. It was shown at as a "Canada's Top Ten" minifestival at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in January 2016, as well as in selected other cities. The documentary was partially based on Michelle Shephard’s 2008 book Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr, which traced Khadr's childhood "traveling between a Canadian suburb and Peshawar at the height of the jihad against the Soviets, to Afghanistan and the homes of Al Qaeda’s elite, into the notorious U.S. prisons at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay and back again to Canada". The documentary won the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2015 award.
 * 2015 Khadr was was released on bail.
 * 2015 Tabitha Speer, the widow of U.S. Delta Force Sgt Christopher Speer who was killed in Afghanistan, and "retired special forces soldier Layne Morris" who was injured..."won a $134-million (U.S.) default civil judgment against [Omar Khadr] in a U.S. federal court in Utah for his alleged actions in the 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that ended with his capture."
 * September 19, 2014 A human rights panel regarding Omar Khadr's case was held on September 19, 2014 at the Manitoba Children’s Theatre coinciding with the opening of Winnipeg's Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Dennis Edney, who was on the panel, said that existing national and international human rights legislation were insufficient to protect Khadr from torture, respecting his status as a minor and providing him with a fair trial.

""Edmonton lawyer Dennis Edney, who has represented Khadr for ten years, said the decision by the warden Kelly Hartle at the Edmonton penitentiary to reclassify Khadr from maximum designation reflects a 'plethora of evidence' from U.S. authorities and Canada’s prison ombudsman that Khadr never was a maximum-security threat.""
 * February 2014 Twenty-seven-year-old Khadr was transferred from Millhaven maximum security facility in Edmonton to the medium-security Bowden Institution in Innisfail, Alberta to complete his eight-year sentence. In February 2014 former Guantanamo captive, Omar Khadr was transferred to the institution, from the Millhaven maximum security facility. At Bowden, unlike at Millhaven, Khadr would have programs available to him which would help him apply for parole.
 * September 23, 2013 Khadr appeared in an Edmonton, Alberta courtroom on September 23, 2013. Warden Kelly Hartle at the Millhaven maximum security facility in Edmonton reclassified Khadr from maximum designation to medium-security.

- Sheila Pratt. National Post. September 23, 2013


 * August 30, 2013 Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said he wasn't "ruling out compensation for Omar Khadr for the time the convicted terrorist served in Guantanamo Bay."

""Omar Khadr needs to be treated the way we treat Canadians according to the rules that exist, according to the laws and principles that govern." [Khadr] should be treated like "any Canadian who as been incarcerated outside of the country.""

- Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau August 30, 2013


 * August 2013 76% of Canadians agreed that Omar Khadr was "treated fairly by the Canadian government" with 18% disagreeing.
 * May 28, 2013 Khadr, 26, was incarcerated in the Edmonton Institution from May 28, 2013 to February 2014.
 * September 28, 2012 Khadr, 25, Omar Khadr was repatriated to Canada. and was incarcerated in Millhaven Institution from September 28, 2012 to May 28, 2013.
 * 2012 Khadr (26) was released from Guantanamo after being incarcerated there for ten years.
 * 2010 You Don't Like the Truth: Four Days Inside Guantanamo is a 1-hour-40-minute-long documentary by Montreal-based Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez, who assembled excerpts from seven hours of declassified tapes of CSIS agents interrogating 16-year-old Omar Khadr in February 2003.


 * November 2010 After sentencing in October, Omar Khadr "was moved to a post-conviction wing of the maximum-security prison at Guantanamo, where he reside[ed] with two other convicted al Qaeda members."
 * October 25, 2010 Omar Khadr pleaded guilty to five charges of war crimes under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, including "murder in violation of the laws of war". The penalty was eight additional years confinement with parole eligibility in mid-2013. He later later retracted the guilty plea. By taking a guilty plea to the "terrorism-related charges" the Obama administration averted "averting the awkward prospect that he would be the first person to stand trial before a military commission." In her November 4, 2010 article, Andrea Prasow, Human Rights Watch Deputy Washington Director, described the trial of Omar Khard. Just before the date of his trial by a military commission in Guantanamo, Khadr entered into a plea bargain. By 2010, Khadr's case became the third trial that ended in a plea bargain. "During the sentencing hearing, when Khadr should have had an opportunity to present mitigating facts, [the military judge, Patrick Parrish] barred the defense from presenting significant evidence of Khadr's ill-treatment while in custody. Additionally, because this case was a plea bargain, Khadr had to waive his right to appeal so none of the fundamental flaws of the military commission process that were a part of his case can be challenged." In accordance with practice, the military jury was not informed that a plea bargain had been reached. They sentenced Omar Khadr to 40 years which was 15 years "more than even the prosecution had asked for". This would have represented a 48-year sentence when combined with the eight years already spent in prison. The military commissions which were created in November 2001 processed only five cases from 2001 through 2010 with only one other detainee facing charges. About 174 prisoners were still at Guantanamo by November 2010. Since 2001 US federal courts "convicted over 400 people of terrorism-related offenses". The presiding military judge, US Army Colonel Patrick Parrish, cited his earlier ruling "that Khadr's statements were not the product of abusive interrogation - a ruling that did not directly challenge the interrogator's testimony about the rape threat - the judge held that portions of the transcript relating to that interrogator's testimony could not be submitted to the jury for consideration. [Parrish] also ordered that a letter from another former interrogator detailing Khadr's abuse be redacted. The portions of the letter that did not refer explicitly to Khadr, but instead described routine practice of guards at Bagram while Khadr was detained there, were removed."

""More than 1,200 US service members have died in Afghanistan since the war began. Nine years into the war, Khadr is the only person to ever have been charged with war crimes for one of those deaths. His case also makes the US the first Western nation since World War II to convict a former child soldier with war crimes.""

- Andrea Prasow, Human Rights Watch Deputy Washington Director. November 4, 2010


 * August 9, 2010 Pre-trial proceedings ended on August 9, 2010. The presiding military judge, US Army Colonel Patrick Parrish, ruled "against the defence on almost every issue."
 * June 2010 The Supreme Court of Canada "unanimously ruled Khadr's rights had been violated while being held in the American detention centre, opening the door to possible legal challenges and compensation requests in Canada."
 * May 24, 2010 In a May 24, 2010 Vancouver Sun article, journalist Steve Edwards reported that the Canwest News Service had recently learned that some in Obama's administration were attempting to implement new rules for conducting Guantanamo military commissions that would have caused the Prosecution to abandon charging Guantanamo captives with murder. If they succeeded, murder charges against Omar Khadr and a third of the Guantanamo captives would have their charges dropped. They failed.
 * May 5, 2010 The first day of the hearing in the last Western citizen held at Guantanamo, Canadian citizen Omar Khadr.
 * May 4, 2010 A new set of procedures for conducting military commissions in accordance with the Military Commissions Act of 2009 was released by the Department of Defense. This was one day before the first new hearing in the case of the Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who had been detained since 2002 at Guantanamo and was the last Western citizen held.


 * 2010 Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010
 * January 29, 2010 In its decision in Khadr v. Canada (Prime Minister), 2010 SCC 3. which was released on January 29, 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada found that although "the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal ordered the federal government to request Omar Khadr's repatriation as a remedy for breaching his section 7 Charter rights, the Supreme Court declined to go so far. Rather, the Court unanimously held that although Mr. Khadr's rights had been violated, it was for the federal executive, and not the courts, to decide how to best provide a remedy for that breach."
 * October 28, 2009 Classified photos of Omar Khadr "lying buried and hurt" in the rubble were acquired by the Toronto Star and published on October 28, 2009 with an article by Michelle Shephard, their National Security Reporter. Khadr's lawyers said that the photos proved "he couldn't have thrown the lethal grenade" and "directly conflict with the prosecution's summary of its own case."

""Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr was buried face down under rubble, blinded by shrapnel and crippled, at the time the Pentagon alleges he threw a grenade that fatally wounded a U.S. soldier, according to classified photographs and defence documents obtained by the Star.""

- Michelle Shephard, Toronto Star's National Security Reporter. October 28, 2009


 * October 9, 2009 The Military Commissions Act of 2009 amended the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to address concerns by the United States Supreme Court.
 * June 14, 2009 From April through June 2009, the "traditionally cautious" Federal Court issued "stinging decisions ordering the government to repatriate terror suspect Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay and bring Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik home from Sudan". Judges have also criticized the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, (CSIS) accusing the agency of "possibly lying to the court about its intelligence information and being complicit in torture of Canadians abroad."

""I think there has been a shift [in the Federal Court]... They are totally ignoring their obligations to the citizens of this country and the Federal Court is calling them on it.""

- Toronto lawyer Paul Copeland cited by Janice Tibbetts in the Montreal Gazette. June 14, 2009

"""In Canadian society, there is long-standing recognition that young people should be treated differently than adults because they have not attained certain decision-making skills and therefore require special protection and guidance.""
 * April 2009 The "Federal Court ordered the government to repatriate Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay". Justice James O’Reilly "accused the [ Canadian Security Intelligence Service, (CSIS)] agency in April, 2009 of "being complicit in Khadr’s torture by interrogating him even though they knew he had been softened up through sleep deprivation."
 * July 16, 2009 A 2009 Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) report "revealed for the first time details from a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) post-interrogation report that said Khadr viewed Al Qaeda "through the eyes of a child" who didn't know about his father's terrorist-linked activities because "he was out playing or simply not interested." The SIRC report was released in 2009 "before a military commission". It was another "indictment of Canada's treatment of the Toronto-born captive." The SIRC report determined that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service failed Khadr.

- Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) in article by Michelle Shepard in The Toronto Star. July 16, 2009

"The Supreme Court of Canada forced the government to release a video of CSIS agents questioning Khadr in February 2003, which created a stir around the world and prompted the SIRC investigation into the spy service's conduct."

""The bottom line is, the government’s position has not changed. It’s been very consistent, not only over the course of this government, but also the previous government. There’s a judicial process to deal with these serious charges that have been levelled against Mr. Khadr, and that process, not a political process, should determine his fate.""
 * 2009 Khadr's former military defence team submitted an 18-page report to "Obama administration task force investigating Guantanamo". The submission included classified photographs showing "the then 15-year-old Canadian [Omar Khadr] covered in bricks and mud from the roof of a bombed compound" with "[t]he body of an adult fighter" lying beside him. "Khadr's lawyers contend could that this unnamed man may "have thrown the grenade that killed U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer".
 * 2008 Hearing. Khadr's defence lawyers argued that "it was physically impossible for Khadr to have thrown the grenade", the military judge refused to "release the photos or declassify the written submissions." The classified photos and documents were obtained and published by the Toronto Star on October 28, 2009. Khadr's defense team released the video tapes of the CSIS officials interrogating sixteen-year-old Omar Khadr in early 2003, hoping for a sympathetic audience as they attempted to convince the Canadian government to seek repatriation "before he is prosecuted for war crimes at the U.S. special tribunal in Guantanamo later [in 2008].
 * early October 2008 Khadr (21) was "scheduled to be tried before a U.S. military commission in early October on five war crimes charges, including the murder of a U.S. medic in a grenade attack during a 2002 firefight when he was 15." According to Steven Edwards, who was the United Nations correspondent for Postmedia for many years, and who covered the story of Omar Khadr from February 2008 through Khadr's "sentencing hearing in October 2010, which included visits to Guantanamo in February 2008, Kuebler and supporting counsel Rebecca Snyder "filed motion after motion aimed at seeing the court proceedings outlast the former Republican administration of President George W. Bush, which he considered to be unsympathetic to Khadr's cause."
 * September 4, 2008 On Thursday September 4, 2008 Colonel Patrick Parrish barred American lawyer and officer in the United States Air Force ReserveThomas W. Hartmann, who was Legal Adviser to the Convening Authority in the Department of Defense Office of Military Commissions since July 2007, from participating in Omar Khadr's Tribunal due of his alleged "undue command influence".
 * August 2008 "In August 2008, Mr. Khadr brought an application in the Federal Court seeking an order that the Canadian government request his repatriation. The application judge held that Mr. Khadr's right to liberty and security of the person under the Charter had been breached and ordered that Canada should request the U.S. to return Mr. Khadr to Canada as his remedy."
 * July 2008 In July 2008 the controversial video recordings of CSIS interrogations of 16-year-old Omar Khadr at Guantanamo were made public.

- ,” said Kory Teneycke, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokesman. July 2008. Global TV.


 * late June 2008 A Federal Court judge decided in late June that the surveillance video tapes of the February 2003 CSIS interrogations would be part of that package to be handed over to Khadr's defense team.
 * April 2008 The Canadian House of Commons Sub-committee on International Human Rights convened a hearing on Khadr's potential repatriation. Senator Romeo Dallaire, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, defence lawyers William C. Kuebler and Rebecca Snyder, and the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights Louise Arbour appeared as witnesses.
 * May 1, 2008 According to an article by Michelle Shephard in the Toronto Star, Liberal Senator Roméo Dallaire said that Khadr's case "goes beyond that of a 21-year-old who has been detained without trial for almost six years, and threatens to harm Canada's reputation as a country dedicated to protecting civil and human rights."

""It makes us look like a damn bunch of hypocrites, nothing less. It emasculates all of us who are Canadian, who are trying to work in areas like eradicating child soldiers. We're sinning against our own beliefs.""

- Liberal Senator Roméo Dallaire retired Canadian Forces lieutenant-general and former commander of the UN Forces in Rwanda. May 1, 2008


 * April 7, 2008 The book, Guantanamo's Child: the Untold Story of Omar Khadr, by Michelle Shephard about Omar Khadr's ordeal in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps was published by John Wiley and Sons in Toronto on April 7, 2008.
 * May 23, 2008 As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Rasul v. Bush (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), the Supreme Court of Canada "concluded in Canada (A.G.) v. Khadr (2008) 2008 SCC 28 that the "regime providing for the detention and trial of Mr. Khadr at the time of the CSIS interviews constituted a clear violation of fundamental human rights protected by international law." "> Following the Supreme Court of Canada's 2008 decision, Mr. Khadr was given access to records of the interviews conducted by CSIS and DFAIT. Under the Canada Evidence Act, Justice Mosley of the Federal Court reviewed the documents and concluded that Canadian officials knew that Mr. hadr had been subject to harsh and, ultimately, illegal interrogation techniques during his detention."
 * Spring 2008 Surveillance video tapes of the February 2003 CSIS interrogations and several "reports from Canadian officials and intelligence agents", were released to Khadr’s lawyers in early spring 2008 "after a series of legal decisions [in 2008] including the Supreme Court ruling earlier in spring 2008 "that some materials collected in Guantanamo Bay had to be handed over to Khadr’s defence team."
 * February 6, 2008 Lieutenant Commander William Keubler, Edney and Nathan Whitling appeared at a hearing in February 2008, along with U.S. assistant counsel Rebecca Snyder, where Kuebler argued to a military judge that it was not the intention of the U.S. Congress to prosecute child soldiers before a military commission. Senator Lindsey Graham (R), who was the main backer of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, "said while he supports military justice for suspected terrorists he leans against trying juvenile offenders." Steven Edwards, who was the United Nations correspondent for Postmedia for many years, covered the story of Omar Khadr, which included visits to Guantanamo in February 2008 until Khadr's "sentencing hearing in October 2010."


 * November 6, 2007 Omar Khadr's defense lawyers were informed just days before his trial, that there was a potential eye witness that the prosecution had known about shortly after the July 2002 firefight, whose testimony could help clear Khadr. Defence lawyers were unable to provide details as the identity of the eyewitness remained a secret and his account was "classified" according to "Lieutenant-Commander Bill Kuebler, the U.S. navy lawyer heading Mr. Khadr's defence".
 * September 25, 2007 In his September 25, 2007 appearance on CBC Radio's As It Happens, Khadr's defense lawyer, Dennis Edney, said that politics played a role in the Toronto terrorism trial.
 * September 19, 2007 On Omar's 21st birthday, William C. Kuebler said,

""Five years of incarceration in Cuba has stunted Khadr's development at a late-adolescent level. [He]...functions as a boy of 13 or 14 and does not have a full grasp of his situation...I would say generally he understands what’s happening, to the extent that any of us do...But it’s very clear he doesn’t have the same grasp as a normal 21-year-old man would. He has not received the social interaction. He has not received an education. He has not received any of the things that a person would need at that age to become a functional adult.""

- William C. Kuebler September 19, 2007

Kuebler wrote, ""Allegedly indoctrinated and recruited as a child soldier in Afghanistan...Omar was taken into US custody after being shot and critically wounded by US forces in a firefight [in Afghanistan] at the age of 15...Notwithstanding its leadership in international efforts to recognize child soldiers as victims in need of special protection and rehabilitation, Canada has remained virtually silent in Omar’s case, hiding behind vague assurances from the US government that Omar is receiving humane treatment and a fair trial in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As a result, Omar now faces the prospect of being the first child to be prosecuted for 'war crimes' in modern history. He is to be tried before a military tribunal whose procedures are designed to secure convictions based on evidence derived from torture and coercion, and that fails to meet the minimum requirements for a fair trial under international law.""

- William C. Kuebler. Press release. September 2007.


 * September 2007 Amnesty International, the Canadian Bar Association and other prominent organisations urged Canada to seek extradition or repatriation for Khadr.

While in Canada, Kuebler acknowledged that Khadr's family made his cause very unpopular in Canada and he maintained that,
 * August 11, 2007 On August 11, 2007, William C. Kuebler urged the Canadian Bar Association to pressure the Canadian government to repatriate Khadr. By the next day the Association wrote to the Canadian Prime Minister to act.

""...Khadr’s "hopes lie in a political, rather than judicial, solution...[E]nough is enough. Really, what you have is the US government attempting to punish Omar for the alleged sins of his father and the Canadian government punishing him for the sins of his family.""

- William C. Kuebler 2007


 * June 4, 2007 On June 4, 2007 William C. Kuebler was the counsel for Omar Khadr.


 * December 6, 2006 An interview with SPC Damien Corsetti, an Interrogator at Bagram and FBI agent Jack Cloonan was shared on YouTube on December 6, 2006.
 * January 11, 2006 A pre-trial hearing was held on January 11, 2006 "despite attempts by his defence lawyers [Muneer Ahmad and Captain John Merriam] to stop it and a pending decision by the Supreme Court on whether the military tribunals are constitutional."
 * January 10, 2006 On January 10, 2006, the U.S. military lawyer, Mo Davis, who was prosecuting [20-year-old] Omar Khadr said that Khadr was "no fresh-faced innocent but a terrorist murderer who deserves to be convicted by a special military tribunal."

""I don't think it's a great leap to figure out why we're holding him accountable...They weren't making s'mores and learning how to tie knots...You'll see evidence when we get into the courtroom of the smiling face of Omar Khadr as he builds bombs to kill Americans...Some say we're making up the rules as we go along but the law has to adapt to today's environment...We're here to prosecute unlawful conduct, not persecute religious beliefs...[W]e've got nothing to be ashamed of. We want the world to see that we're extending a full, fair and open trial to the terrorists that have attacked us. We're extending rights to them that they've never contemplated.""

- U.S. military lawyer, Mo Davis, for the prosecution. January 10, 2006. Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as reported by Beth Gorham of The Globe and Mail

Khadr was assigned an American lawyer, Muneer Ahmad, who said that Khadr had "been tortured during his 39 months in Guantanamo". Khadr was "formally represented by Captain John Merriam, a U.S. Army judge advocate with no trial experience." Ahmad called on Canada to "denounce the tribunal system set up by U.S. President George W. Bush, saying it allows confessions extracted by torture and does not afford anywhere near the kind of due process of criminal civil trials."

""Canada has a decision to make, either to publicly condemn the military commissions as fundamentally unfair ... or to remain silent on the matter and complicit in the sham trial.""

- American lawyer, Muneer Ahmad Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as reported by Beth Gorham of The Globe and Mail


 * October 17, 2006 President George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (S. 3930) into law "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes".


 * September 29, 2006 According to a September 29, 2006 article in the Washington Post, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 "sets standards for interrogating suspects, but through a complex set of rules that human rights groups said could allow harsh techniques that bordered on torture such as sleep deprivation and induced hypothermia. It establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercion, but would give defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them." "Most Republicans said lawsuits from Guantanamo inmates were clogging the courts and detracted from the war on terrorism." Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) said the bill should not "create a long-term battle with the courts over everybody that's being detained. It is a function of the military and the executive branch to conduct a war."

""Today, the Senate sent a strong signal to the terrorists that we will continue using every element of national power to pursue our enemies and to prevent attacks on America. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 will allow the continuation of a CIA program that has been one of America's most potent tools in fighting the War on Terror. Under this program, suspected terrorists have been detained and questioned about threats against our country. Information we have learned from the program has helped save lives at home and abroad. By authorizing the creation of military commissions, the Act will also allow us to prosecute suspected terrorists for war crimes.""

- George W. Bush, President of the United States September 28, 2006. Washington Post


 * Detainee Treatment Act The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) is an Act of the United States Congress that was passed on 30 December 2005. Offered as an amendment to a supplemental defense spending bill, it contains provisions relating to treatment of persons in custody of the Department of Defense, and administration of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including:
 * November 2005 Khadr was formally charged. In 2005 "intelligence officials" claimed that Omar Khadr's deceased father had been "an Al Qaeda financier and Canada's highest-ranking member of the terrorist organization."
 * June 28, 2004 In the United States Supreme Court case, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (Hamdi v Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al.), 542 U.S. 507 (2004), while the Justices recognized the U.S. government's power to detain enemy combatants which could include U.S. citizens, they ruled that U.S. citizen detainees have the right to due process including the ability to challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial authority. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld reversed the dismissal by a lower court of a habeas corpus by Hamdi who was a U.S. citizen, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and had been "detained indefinitely as an illegal enemy combatant. He was released without charge on October 9, 2004 and deported to Saudi Arabia on the condition that he renounce his U.S. citizenship.

In 2004 in his dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld which he argued, upheld the detention of a US citizen as an enemy combatant without charge or suspension of the habeas corpus, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, ""The Founders warned us about the risk, and equipped us with a Constitution designed to deal with it. Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis - that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it. Because the Court has proceeded to meet the current emergency in a manner the Constitution does not envision, I respectfully dissent.""

- Justice Scalia. June 28, 2004. Dissent. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld

""...to become an al-Qaeda, [I] was raised to become a suicide bomber, was raised to become a bad person....Until now, everybody says we are an al-Qaeda-connected family but when I say this, just by me saying it, I just admitted we are an al-Qaeda family. We had connections to al-Qaeda.""
 * April 2004 In April 2004 Maha el-Samnah returned to Canada with her 14-year-old son Abdul Karim who had been paralyzed in the fall of 2003 in a battle with the Pakistani military in which his father was killed. They were in a house "with suspected Al Qaeda militants".
 * March 17, 2004 OC-1 presented a Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) witness report of Investigative Activity.
 * March 3, 2004 Zaynab Khadr (1979-) and her mother, Maha el-Samnah, "came under strong criticism in Canada for remarks they made for a March 3, 2004 CBC documentary titled Al Qaeda Family." In the documentary "In the documentary, Khadr and her mother criticized how children are brought up in Canada. But it was their comments about the Sept. 11 attacks that generated the most controversy. Americans, she said at the time, deserved to feel a pain similar to what they inflicted on others." Omar Khadr's brother, Abdurahman Khadr, who was released from Guantanamo Bay in October 2003 and "came back to Canada in December 2003, after working for a brief time for the CIA", said in the same documentary, that his father had sent him to Afghanistan,

- Omar Khadr's brother, Abdurahman Khadr. March 3, 2004. Al Qaeda Family. CBC


 * 2004 In 2004 Nate Whitling, Khadr’s lawyer, drafted Khadr's "initial claim" against the Canadian federal government in the civil case. Materials from that claim were accepted by Justice Thomas McEwan in the July 13, 2017 hearing.
 * 2004 In 2004 OC-1, the sole eye witness at the firefight "described to an interviewer what he saw after the grenade was thrown in the July 27, 2002 attack". The resulting five-page secret document was based on an interview with [OC-1], the man who shot Khadr twice in the back.


 * 2004 Canadian officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) interviewed Mr. Khadr at Guantánamo Bay again in 2004. Mr. Khadr did not have legal representation and did not have the assistance of Canadian consular officials. He had not been permitted to contact his family and still retained legal status as a minor. The interviews were being monitored and recorded by U.S. officials. CSIS and DFAIT intended to use the interviews to gain intelligence, and not for the purpose of gathering evidence to assist the U.S. in prosecuting Khadr. Nonetheless, the interviews were shared with U.S. officials and neither CSIS nor DFAIT placed any limits on the information's use." "CSIS agents interviewed Khadr twice in 2003, before a federal court injunction prevented further interrogations. The Supreme Court of Canada forced the government to release a video of CSIS agents questioning Khadr in February 2003, which created a stir around the world and prompted the SIRC investigation into the spy service's conduct."
 * January 2004 In 2004 PBS journalist Terrence McKenna interviewed Omar Khadr's family including his sister Zaynab Khadr, his mother Maha el-Samnah, and his older brothers, Abdullah Khadr and Abdurahman Khadr. Abdurahman Khadr described how he trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan, his captivity in Kabul by the Northern Alliance after 9/11, and working undercover with the CIA in Guantanamo and Bosnia. His older brother Abdullah Khadr denied membership Al Qaeda or terrorist activities of which he is accused. His mother, his sister Zaynab and his brother, Abdullah Khadr, admitted that they were sympathetic to Al Qaeda's "goal of a Muslim state" but denied "that the family was ever officially a part of Al Qaeda."
 * October 2003 Omar Khadr's brother, Abdurahman Khadr, was held in detention in Guantanamo Bay from 2001 until October 2003 when he was freed after he agreed to cooperate with the Americans. In a CBC documentary that aired on March 3, 2004 titled Al Qaeda Family Abdurahman Khadr said that "his father was old friends with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and that his brothers attended terrorist training camps."
 * February 2003 About six months after Khadr was detained, in February 2003, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) interrogated him over a four-day period resulting in seven hours of video taped by U.S. authorities. The video was "turned over to Khadr's defense team", who "released the tapes in hopes of generating sympathy for the young prisoner and to try to persuade the Canadian government to seek custody before he is prosecuted for war crimes at the U.S. special tribunal in Guantanamo later [in 2008]. "CSIS agents interviewed Khadr twice in 2003, before a federal court injunction prevented further interrogations. The Supreme Court of Canada forced the government to release a video of CSIS agents questioning Khadr in February 2003, which created a stir around the world and prompted the SIRC investigation into the spy service's conduct."

According to Global TV, "[a]t one point during the interrogation Khadr began sobbing uncontrollably for almost 20 minutes, ripping his tunic over his head and showing the wounds he said he received as a result of torture while at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. 'Help me!' he said, over and over again."

""No, I am not; you’re not here (in Guantanamo Bay). I lost my eyes. I lost my feet, everything...You don’t care about me...I didn’t do anything. I was in the house when the fighting started. I didn’t have a choice... What was my mistake? Being in a house where my father put me? I’m not lying. If you were tortured like I was tortured, you probably would say more than what I said. You are not in my position. That’s why you are saying this... I told you the truth. You don’t like the truth.""

- Sixteen-year-old Omar Khadr. February 2003. CSIS interrogation surveillance videos


 * October 2002 Khadr was sent to Guantanamo Bay detention camp at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba just after his sixteenth birthday. Canadian authorities requested consular access to Khadr but it was denied.
 * 2002 In her November 2010 article in Jurist, Deputy Washington Director Andrea Prasow described how 15-year-old Omar Khadr, who was in "US custody" at Bagram Air Base, "apparently confessed to constructing and planting Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and throwing a grenade that killed US Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer." Questions were later raised about whether this confession was obtained through torture. In the summer of 2010 at a pre-trial hearing in Omar Khadr's case, a "former interrogator testified that he told Khadr a story, which unbeknownst to Khadr was fictional, of another young man who had been gang-raped in prison in order to induce Khadr to cooperate. He also testified on the routine way in which prisoners were abused, including the military's reliance on sleep deprivation, barking dogs and stress positions, although he claimed he could not remember ever using those techniques on Khadr." The military judge of the summer 2010 hearing, "ruled that whatever abuse Khadr had suffered, if any, had not prompted him to make his confession, and therefore his confession could be admitted at trial."
 * July 2002 - October 2002 Khadr was detained at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Canadian authorities were refused in their request for consular access to Khadr.
 * August 2002 According to a July 11, 2017 article in The Walrus, "Lt. Col. Randy Watt, who had led the American battalion, wrote a report after the firefight describing how the grenade-thrower had been killed in battle. The report was later 'updated' to state that the grenade-thrower was shot, not killed."
 * July 27, 2002 Sgt. Christopher Speer, U.S. Army combat medic and a member of a special operations team was fatally wounded during firefight in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002. Speer, who wearing indigenous clothing, not a combat helmet and suffered a head wound from a grenade. He died approximately two weeks later. was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan. Omar Khadr's "alleged actions in the 2002 firefight in Afghanistan" ended with his capture".

""The suspected Al Qaeda compound was identified by U.S. and Afghan forces in the early morning of July 27, 2002. Two Afghan militia members approached the small compound, estimated at "100 to 120 feet square." They were immediately shot and killed by occupants inside...That shooting drew an overwhelming response. More than 100 U.S. troops assembled on the site, and for the next four hours the compound was pounded with cannon, missile, and rocket fire from a coordinated air assault involving Apache helicopters, A-10 warplanes and F-18 fighter jets. Multiple 500-lb. bombs were dropped on the site. When American forces believed everyone inside had been killed, a U.S. Special Forces team entered the compound. Whatever happened next took less than a minute, according to reports. At the end of it, Sgt. Christopher Speer, who was not wearing a helmet, was mortally wounded in the head from a grenade, and Khadr was captured alive.""

- Sandy Garossino National Observer July 2017

In 2008, a 2014 Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) witness report in which OC-1 who was the sold witness to the July 27, 2002 firefight was interviewed, "inadvertently released to reporters" which contradicted the official government version of events. In the 2004 CITF witness report, OC-1 "claimed that there were two men in the compound". The report by Lt. Col. Randy Watt, who had led the American battalion, written after the firefight described "how the grenade-thrower had been killed in battle. The report was later "updated" to state that the grenade-thrower was shot, not killed." ""[OC-1] heard moaning coming from the back of the compound. The dust rose up from the ground and began to clear, he then saw a man facing him lying on his right side," the report states....The man had an AK-47 on the ground beside him and the man was moving. OC-1 fired one round striking the man in the head and the movement ceased. Dust was again stirred by this rifle shot. When the dust rose, he saw a second man sitting up facing away from him leaning against the brush. This man, later identified as Khadr, was moving . . . OC-1 fired two rounds both of which struck Khadr in the back.""

- Interview with OC-1. March 17, 2004. Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) witness report


 * July 27, 2002 Omar Khadr was "inside a compound with an al Qaeda cell that had been building and planting Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) targeting US and coalition forces. US forces engaged the cell. During the firefight a grenade exploded, killing US Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer."
 * November 13, 2001 On November 13, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush issued a Presidential Military Order entitled Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism or "November 13 Order" which "authorizing military detention and trial by military commission of individuals whom the President believe[d] to be members of Al Qaeda, international terrorists, or persons who have aided, abetted, or harbored such terrorists.'.


 * November 29, 2001 On November 29, 2001 Timothy H. Edgar, Legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted a Memorandum expressing concern that the November 13, 2001 Military Order was "providing for potentially indefinite detention of any non-citizen accused of terrorism, and permitting trial of such defendants in a military commission" that "would not follow the same process as courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and would afford few, if any, of the protections available in the ordinary military justice system... It circumvents the basic statutory requirement - at the heart of the compromise on detention in the USA Patriot Act -- that "non-citizens suspected of terrorism must be charged with a crime or immigration violation within seven days of being taken into custody, and that such detainees will have full access to the federal courts."

""The scope of the Military Order is breathtakingly broad, applying far beyond a narrow class of Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. It applies to any individual whom the President determines he has "reason to believe" is (1) a member of Al Qaeda, (2) is in any way involved in "acts of international terrorism" -- a term which is not defined by the order -- or (3) has "knowingly harbored" either of the above. It applies retroactively and contains no time limit, allowing for such trials not only of conduct years ago, but long after the current crisis is over. Any one of the more than 20 million non-citizens in the United States, most of whom are legal residents, and anyone else in the rest of the world, could potentially face trial in a military tribunal.""

- Timothy H. Edgar, Legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Memorandum. November 29, 2001


 * September 11, 2001 In the post 9/11 era, the Canadian Federal Court became "the adjudicator of the war on terror in Canada.
 * 2001 In 2001 Omar Khadr was "given weapons training".
 * 2001 Omar Khadr's older brother, Abdurahman Khadr, was captured in Afghanistan. He was incarcerated at the "U.S. military detention compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba" until October 2003 when he was freed "after agreeing to co-operate with U.S. authorities." IN a January 2004 interview on PBS Frontline, Abdurahman Khadr claimed he was already working with the CIA as an undercover spy when he was sent to Guantanamo Bay. From there he was sent to Bosnia undercover.
 * September 9, 1999 Omar Khadr's oldest sister, Zaynab Khadr, married Yacoub al-Bahr in Kabul. Osama bin Laden attended the wedding.
 * January 1996 Omar Khadr's father launched a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment in Pakistan. "He gathers his six children, contacts Canadian journalists and asks Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to intervene. Chrétien later raises the issue with the Pakistani government during a trade mission. Ahmed Said is released. He then encourages his four boys to attend training camps in Afghanistan." Later that year Omar Khadr's father took the 10-year-old to Pakistan and later Afghanistan. He raised Omar "among al Qaeda fighters" "using him as an interpreter."
 * November 1995 Omar Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, the "Khadr family patriarch, was one of the suspects in a bombing that that "leveled the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad and killed 16 people." Ahmed Said Khadr was arrested by Pakistani authorities." Former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien secured Ahmed Khadr's release from Pakistan. "By 1998, the family was back in Afghanistan, living in the same compound as Osama bin Laden." Ahmed Khadr was killed in a firefight in Pakistan in 2003.
 * September 19, 1986 Omar Khadr was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His parents already had three children, a daughter, Zaynab Khadr (1979-), Abdullah Khadr and Abdurahman Khadr.
 * 1980 Omar Khadr's father met Osama Bin Laden, when they were both fighting against the Soviet Union who had invaded Afghanistan.
 * 1977 Omar Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr (1948 – 2003) immigrated to Canada from Egypt. Maha el-Samnah, who became his wife, is a Palestinian-Canadian.

"Inter arma enim silent leges (Latin) "in times of war, the law falls silent.""

- Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC) Roman politician, lawyer, orator